And so, embracing that selfishness at this moment, I ask myself if Tarathiel's fall was a warning or a test. I dared to open my heart, and it was torn asunder. Do I fall back into that other being once more, encase my spirit in stone to make it impervious to such pain? Or is this sudden and unexpected loss a test of my spirit, to show that I can accept the cruelty of fate and press on, that I can hold fast to my beliefs and my principles and my hopes against the pain of those images?
I think that we all make this choice all the time, in varying degrees. Every day, every tenday, when we face some adversity, we find options that usually run along two roads. Either we hold our course—the one we determinedly set in better and more hopeful times, based on principle and faith-or we fall to the seemingly easier and more expedient road of defensive posture, both emotional and physical. People and often societies sometimes react to pain and fear by closing up, by sacrificing freedoms and placing practicality above principle.
Is that what I have been doing since the fall of Bruenor? Is this hunting creature I have become merely a tactic to forego the pain?
While in Silverymoon some years ago, I chanced to study the history of the region, to glance at perspectives on the many wars faced by the people of that wondrous community throughout the ages. At those times when the threatened Silverymoon closed up and put aside her enlightened principles-particularly the recognition that the actions of the individual are more important than the reputation of the individual's race—the historians were not kind and the legacy did not shine.
The same will be said of Drizzt Do'Urden, I think, by any who care to take notice.
There is a small pool in the cave where Tarathiel and Innovin-dil took up residence, where I am now staying with the grieving Innovindil. When I look at my reflection in that pool, I am reminded, strangely, of Artemis Entreri.
When I am the hunting creature, the reactionary, defensive and closed-hearted warrior, I am more akin to him. When I strike at enemies, not out of community or personal defense, not out of the guiding recognition of right and wrong or good and evil, but out of anger, I am more akin to that closed and unfeeling creature I first met in the tunnels of duergar-controlled Mithral Hall. On those occasions, my blades are not guided by conscience or powered by justice.
Nay, they are guided by pain and powered by anger.
I lose myself.
I see Innovindil across the way, crying still for the loss of her dear Tarathiel. She is not running away from the grief and the loss. She is embracing it and incorporating it into her being, to make it a part of herself, to own it so that it cannot own her.
Have I the strength to do the same?
I pray that I do, for I understand now that only in going through the pain can I be saved.
— Drizzt Do'Urden
CHAPTER 22 THE CALL OF DESPERATE TIMES
"Uh oh," Nanfoodle whispered to Shoudra.
When the sceptrana looked his way, the little gnome motioned his chin toward a group of dwarves holding a conversation near the lip of the cliff. Torgar and Shingles were there, as well as Catti-brie, Wulfgar, Banak, and Tred of Citadel Felbarr. Tred had just returned from Mithral Hall with word of Pikel, no doubt, and also of the duo from Mirabar.
At around the same time Banak and the others all turned to regard the gnome and Shoudra, and their expressions spoke volumes.
"Time for us to go," Shoudra whispered back, and she grabbed Nanfoodle's shoulder.
"No," the gnome insisted, pulling away. "No, we will not flee."
"You underestimate—"
"We helped them in their dilemma here. Dwarves appreciate that," Nan-foodle said, and he started off toward the group.
"I thought it from the first," Torgar Hammerstriker said when Nanfoodle arrived, Shoudra moving cautiously behind. "Ye still can't see the truth o' that damned marchion."
"We didn't flee, did we?" Nanfoodle replied.
"Ye'd probably be smart in keeping yer mouth shut, little one," offered Shingles, and his tone wasn't threatening as much as honest, even sympathetic.
"Ye've got yerself in enough trouble by-the-by. These folk'll treat ye fair and put ye on yer way back home soon enough."
"We could be well on our way home already, if that was the course we chose," Nanfoodle stubbornly replied. "But we did not."
"Because ye're a dolt?" Torgar remarked.
"Because we believed we could be useful," Nanfoodle countered.
"To us or to them orcs?" Banak Brawnanvil put in. "Ye came here to ruin our metal, so ye told Steward Regis yerself."
"That was before we knew of the orc army," Nanfoodle explained.
He tried to focus and find his center, tried to calm his breathing, telling himself to trust in the truth.
"And that's making it any better?" Banak demanded.
"We came here under orders to do exactly what you have stated," Shoudra Stargleam admitted. She came forward to stand beside Nanfoodle and managed to release herself from Banak's imposing stare long enough to shoot her little friend a comforting look. "Your departure brought great fear and distress to Mirabar," she went on, addressing Torgar directly. "And weakened our city greatly."
"That's not me problem," the stubborn dwarf answered.
"No, it is not," Shoudra admitted. "It is the duty of the marchion to protect his people."
"He'd do better protecting them if he could tell the difference between friends and enemies," Torgar shot back, poking a stubby finger Shoudra's way.
The sceptrana held her hands up to calm him, patting them in the air.
"This is not the time to rehash the debate," she said.
"Good a time as any, as far as I'm seein' it," said Torgar.
"We came here not to sabotage.." the sceptrana began.
"The little one admitted it," said Tred, who had brought the news up to the cliff.
"… but to investigate," Shoudra went on. "We had to know if there was any danger to Mirabar—surely you can understand that. Perhaps the emigrating dwarves harbored resentment that would bring them back upon our city, with a host of Battlehammers behind them."
"Ye're talking stupid," said Torgar.
Shoudra started to respond, then sighed and nodded.
"I am telling you things from the perspective of Marchion Elastul, who is charged with the security of Mirabar," she explained.
"Like I said," came Torgar's dry reply.
"Barring any imminent threat to Mirabar—which Nanfoodle and I did not expect to find—we would never have used the formula. In fact, it was that same formula that Nanfoodle used to destroy the giant catapults. Have you so quickly forgotten our help?"
"Course we ain't," said Banak. "Which makes this news all the more painful. We're in a war here, so ye come here as friends or ye come here as enemies. Ain't no middling ground when the blood is flowing."
"We are here as friends," Nanfoodle said without hesitation. "We could have run home, but we did not. We were free in Keeper's Dale and would have been long off to the west before any word came out of Mithral Hall had we chosen to flee. But how could we, when we knew that you were fighting our common enemy up here? How could we when we knew that we could bring valuable assistance to your cause? Judge not my drunken words to Regis—never did I desire to poison Mithral Hall's metal. It is a mission I resisted every step out of Mirabar, and one that I only embarked upon with the intention of turning aside its course. And no less can be said of Shoudra Stargleam, who has ever been a friend of Torgar Hammerstriker and Shingles McRuff."